Subduction Zone

Northwest Dealings

Subduction Zone Blog

Economics / King County / Taxation / Transportation / Washington

The Right Approach to Using Extorted Money

Some King County council members have finally figured out that money taken from citizens should not be used to support commercial endeavors: County Councilmen David Irons and Dwight Pelz on Monday formally presented a pair of proposed bills that would prevent the use of county funds or state or federal grants to support efforts to allow commercial airlines to operate at Boeing Field. Sadly, I doubt they’ve learned that this approach should apply across the board. For instance, airlines and their passengers should pay all the costs related to Sea-Tac; the stadiums should be payed for entirely by the teams...

Economics / Law Enforcement / Washington

Turn It Over To The Police

There was an article in today’s Seattle Times about a phenomena called curbstoning which, given their liberal definition of the article, any of us who have bought a vehicle from a private party have been involved with. Read the article for the juice on curbstoning. What really struck me was that apparently our fine legislature has found some need to require that anyone who sells 5 or more vehicles during a year must buy a $500 license, have a commercial place of business and more. You fall under this legislation even if you simply negotiate on the part of another...

Economics / Seattle / Taxation / Transportation

Urban Transportation Projects as Market Failures

The Seattle Times today presented one of the best arguments I have seen for terminating the Monorail Project: • Operations would almost certainly have to be subsidized somehow Koupit Clomid , as no public-finance expert interviewed by The Times believes the monorail’s claims that it can support itself from fares, ads and self-generated revenue. “Typically, urban transportation projects in the United States are not self-supporting,” said Scott Trommer, senior director at Fitch Ratings, one of the nation’s three bond-rating agencies. “They require subsidy support, from some kind of dedicated tax or government grants.” And, terminate all the other analogous projects....

Taxation / Transportation / Washington

Incomplete Picture for Viaduct Funding

In a Seattle PI guest editorial titled Complete Picture for Viaduct Funding Davd K.Y. Tang and Steve Leahyin urge Washington residents to contact their congress critters and ask them to support federal funding for the Seattle Viaduct project. Why, though, would anyone pick up the phone, write an email, etc., based on the incomplete information in this piece? How much money are they asking for? What will be the total cost of the project? How will the so called regional share be funded? Why should federal money be involved at all? Could the entire project be funded by tolls? If...

Economics / Law Enforcement / Washington

Good Riddance?

She stole $143,000 from the Edmonds School District and is going to jail for 14 months: Lewin, a former district bookkeeper, has no criminal history, and she stood to spend just three months or less in the county jail under the state’s sentencing laws. By law, Bowden was able to go beyond the standard sentencing range because Lewin had agreed that what she did was a major economic offense against the school district. Deputy prosecutor Adam Cornell asked for only four months in jail. Lynnwood defense lawyer Michael Mulvihill recommended three months or less. Bowden acknowledged that Lewin cooperated with...

Campaign Finance / Washington

Red and Blue

Timothy Goddard notes: Regardless of what happened Monday morning, the gubernatorial election showed that Washington is very evenly divided between red and blue–but the fact that only a three of our nine person delegation to the House of Representatives is Republican doesn’t bear that out. However, there’s a man who aims to make that score a little bit more even. That man is Doug Roulstone, and he is challenging Rick Larsen for the 2nd District House seat. Based on the rest of the post he does look like a strong potential challenger to the the incumbent. But I’ll save discussion...